by Brenda Baletti, Ph.D., Childrens Health Defense:
Diabetes patients who took Ozempic were more than twice as likely to develop an eye condition that causes vision loss than patients using a different diabetes drug, according to a new study. Novo Nordisk, which manufactures Ozempic, says the findings don’t change the risk-benefit profile for Ozempic and similar drugs.
Diabetes patients who took Ozempic were more than twice as likely to develop an eye condition that causes vision loss than patients using a different diabetes drug, according to a new study.
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The study linked semaglutide, the active ingredient in Ozempic and Wegovy — which in addition to treating diabetes are widely used to lose weight — to non-arteritic anterior ischemic optic neuropathy (NAION).
The study, published last week on a preprint server, is undergoing peer review.
NAION can result in sudden vision loss due to loss of blood flow to the optic nerve. It is a major cause of severe vision loss and blindness in adults and the second-most common form of optic nerve damage after glaucoma. There is no effective treatment for the condition.
Doctors have recommended that patients considering taking these drugs should be informed of the risk, Bloomberg reported.
While the absolute risk of the disorder remains low, the authors of the study said, they found 1.4 additional cases per 10,000 among patients who took Ozempic.
Researchers analyzed data from the national healthcare registries in Denmark and Norway, comparing the rates of NAION between people taking semaglutide (Ozempic) versus those taking SGLT-2s, an older class of drugs used to treat Type 2 diabetes.
The analysis began in 2018 when drugmaker Novo Nordisk released Ozempic in those markets, and continued through 2022 in Norway and 2024 in Denmark.
The researchers analyzed the records of more than 44,000 Ozempic users in Denmark and more than 16,000 in Norway and found 32 NAION cases. Their findings were generally consistent across their analyses in both countries.
The effect on people taking semaglutide for weight loss was inconclusive, the authors said. That’s because the study required one year of follow-up and given the recent approval of semaglutide for weight loss, there were not yet enough patients in the database to conduct a proper analysis.
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